Leo Mitsugo was not having a good day. He had been ordered as part of his standard duties to deliver a manifest to the Land of Fire that was to the south and he had to get it signed by what he assumed was their leader, a Kage. He was one of those that had founded the village and was a pretty big deal apparently.
Leo didn't really know why but who was he to question what made a man important and what didn't.
As for what he was supposed to be doing here, he was delivering rice. Lots of rice. As well as wheat, maize, various fruits, vegetables and who knew what else.
Or rather he knew but he didn't want to think about it since everything was just too damned much. There was so much in fact that there were 8 teams that had been assigned to bring in the food was a testament to just how much of the stuff there was.
Each of the teams would be carrying 4 scrolls, each filled to the brim with food supplies.
They would be getting paid with land leased to them in an agreement that would last for 100 years. Yearly deliveries of food would allow for the Land of Fire to grow even larger than would have otherwise been possible, while also allowing for them to use what would have been considered useless land.
The lease agreement would be renewed every 100 years if both parties agreed to it, which they should given that only the Mitsugo would be capable of producing such high yields.
This was the first of the deliveries and for some reason, Leo had been selected as the one to lead it. Why? He didn't know, he was only 3 years out of the school which meant that when it came down to it… he was also rather weak.
He hadn't gone through combat training, he was still going through bureaucratic training, and when it came down to it… was also extremely lazy.
Still, he was here now, and he was hopping through the forest, and trying to avoid getting smacked in the face by the various little branches and the like.
They had set off from the leased area, what was called Area 51 since it was the 51st district of the Rice Nation, and they had been travelling for what seemed like weeks now. Or rather a few hours. It was a trek and they would be met at the rendezvous point by the Hokage as he was called, after which it was going to be straight to the final destination. The Village storehouses.
From what he had been briefed on, the village itself was pretty big. It had what looked to be trees that were being used as outposts and houses, a circumference what was about a third of the size as that of the Rice Nation's capital, impressive given just how quickly the Mitsugo… populated, and was home to 2 clans of Ninjas. Well, 2 major clans, there were more of them coming along and Leo hadn't been paying enough attention to it all at the briefing. Something about there being their own trios but from different clans, a few that had sealing powers or something, and something else.
Leo wasn't really paying attention… which he should. Not paying attention generally meant that the world was going to be clobbering you over the head at some point when you weren't looking and that never ended well at all.
As for Leo, he was going to be heading out to enjoy the the feeling… of nothing. He couldn't work up the effort inside of himself to care about what he was going to be doing and he wanted to be back home where the most responsibility he had was growing crops.
All he did was growing crops and he was just wanting to return to what he had been doing before all this. Just… cruising along. He was a leaf and life was a bubbling brook, taking him where he needed to go.
Leo stared at the man who was wearing some kind of red body armour and looking on at them. He looked rather interesting actually called himself Hashirama Senju. Whiiich was the Kage of the village.
Oh.
That was rather strange. What was he doing here? This… this was very dangerous and he shouldn't be here at all.
"Good morning Rice Nation delegates! I am Hashirama and I am here to welcome you to the Fire Nation. Also to Konoha! Just stand still and I'll take us right there." He said, grinning at them in a very untrustworthy manner.
Oh dear.
This was probably not going to be good.
He slapped his hands together did a release seal of some kind, Leo didn't know, he wasn't combat trained… and he also had a completely different Chakra base than they did so their hand seals were all different.
There was a brief period of disorientation before Hashirama shouted out from beside them.
"Welcome to my village! It is a good village and I hope you enjoy your stay in it!" He shouted at the top of his lungs.
He was too damned cheerful and kamidamn it, Leo did not need this in his life.
"Hashirama weren't you supposed to arrive here tomorrow? What… you didn't. Dammit Hashirama, do you want people to try to and pick a fight with you whenever they meet you? Please brother, some restraint." Came a second voice. A... Tobirama, a ninja, a pretty good one at that. The brother of Hashirama and the one that he would be dealing with in this situation.
The Kage apparently had all of the idealism and the happiness, but he was also… not very good when it came to doing things like handling the logistics of it all if the last minute briefing he just got was any indication. Not that it really mattered, Leo was here to deliver the food as requested and from there, well, he would rest for a moment before going to sleep and then heading home.
It was a good plan and as he waited for whoever it was that was going to point them in the direction that they needed to go, Leo was content with waiting.
The village sort of resembled his own one actually, the way that there were trees everywhere, the way that it looked like there were 2 layers to the city… and sort of that was it… but yeah. That was it. Pretty cool city really, nice and open.
The Rice Nation's cities were all multi-levelled affairs. While they didn't have the Hokage's abilities when it came to creating trees out of nowhere, they did have the ability to strengthen and grow. In effect, by combining multiple trees together with earth and strengthening chakra, they were able to with life Jutsu, grow enormous levels on their cities. Each one was in essence, a few dozen meters high, and there were about 8 or 9 floors of this, all of it layered with housing, markets, more farms, and the offices of those like Leo who were supposed to be handling the bureaucracy of it all.
It was a pain in the ass, but it was also something that was necessary… or so they convinced themselves.
By having many layers to their cities and villages, they were able to produce far more rice, to concentrate their population and allow for more farmland, as well as make defending themselves something that was much easier.
The problem came from the fact that the city was expanding… and they were getting what looked to be the massive spreading out of the layers all over the Rice Nation… which meant that at some point in the future, it was likely that there was going to be some kind of swallowing of their entire nation by these trees and the levels… not for some time… but soon-ish… on a geological timescale.
It wasn't so bad, but it was certainly very weird looking, enormous living cities that would probably be very terrifying for anyone who got lost inside of them. They did after all house ecosystems with wild beasts that were being farmed as well as kept as pets.
It was something to think about certainly, it wasn't going to happen in his lifetime, but maybe soon in the future, all of his descendents were going to be living in what amounted to be floating forests.
As for the man in front of him right now, however, Leo was just waiting for them to get around to showing them where to dump the massive amounts of food.
"So, this delivery. 10% of the total food produced in what you call area 51 will be given to us as rent in exchange for leasing the area is this correct?" Asked Tobirama, standing in front of them, inside what looked to be a warehouse… that was nowhere near as large as it should have been for this delivery.
"Correct Tobirama-sama. However, we will need a larger warehouse." Leo said, looking around the inside, it didn't look like it was spatially warped, which was an issue.
"Larger? Just how much storage do you need?" He asked, looking confused.
For his part, Leo just smiled and said "Roughly 6 times of what we have here."
The flabbergasted look on Tobirama's face was something to behold. Leo only smiled wider and he was sure that the others were also smiling it wasn't every day that he got to do this.
Tobirama for his part had no real answer for them and in the end decided to just have it opened in the main square where they would inspect it.
As the team members unfurled the massive scrolls that were on their backs, each one roughly a meter wide.
Laying them down and rolling them out, Leo waited for the unveiling.
Each of the scrolls was set 25 meters apart from the others. They would need that much for what was about to happen.
At his signal, each of the scrolls was remotely opened, trying to do it in person would kill them from the weight.
And from the scrolls emerged a deluge of food items, tonnes upon tonnes of rice, flour, cornmeal, root vegetables, fruits and more.
All of them pouring out either in bags as the flours were, or in a heap as with the vegetables.
"Standard delivery. 100 tonnes each of rice, flour, and cornmeal. 10 tonnes each of potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, rhubarb, turnip, and assorted tubers. 10 tonnes of assorted fresh fruits. 50 tonnes of pork and chicken cumulatively. Please sign here." Leo said, holding the manifest in front of him in at Tobirama.
For his part, the man just stared at the food, mouth agape.
"This… this is 10%?" He asked, his face surprised… to say the least.
"Yes, it is. Our reports for the region's production have been included in the manifest." Leo said, he understood the worry. Nobody else was using manifests to make sure that everything was done propel, nor were they recording everything down. The Warring States period had left its mark and people weren't feeling secure enough to be writing things down for storage. Having that much stuff to carry around would only slow them down and they weren't secure enough to contemplate it, sad really. Having paperwork really helped in life, then again he understood why they didn't.
Not when the threat of the village being wiped out or being forced to move on a constant basis was in the back of their minds.
The Rice Nation had their moment of prosperity and had used it to establish a government, bureaucracy, and the works. Not like these villages and nations that were just now starting to become civilized.
"But our estimates were less than half of this for the entire region. How did you do this?" Tobirama asked, his mouth back to normal.
"Clan secrets," Leo said, grinning at them.
He nodded as the manifest came back signed and waited for Tobirama to either direct them to their lodgings for the night, or have someone to do it for him. It wasn't like he was really waiting for the chance to lie down some.
Even if they were going to try to eavesdrop on him.
That was just expected after all. One didn't allow Ninjas into the village and not try to glean information from them, to do otherwise was just insane.
And this village had the Uchida… who were… maybe insane? But still very sane.